Beneficiaries

The project will have an impact through two main channels: the new measurement model proposed and the substantive findings of the project. The former will be relevant for collectors and users of survey data, being especially valuable for those interested in longitudinal data as measurement models are still underdeveloped for this type of data. Thus, the outputs from this project are relevant for numerous fields and disciplines including: sociology, (social) psychology, public opinion research, health, survey methodology and statistics.

Researchers in these fields will benefit from the existence of a new method that can be used to correct for measurement error. This project will provide an example on how this can be implemented and analysed improving the measures of attitudes towards immigrants, a very visible and important debate in western societies. All secondary data analysts that want to use the corrected measures, be it for cross-sectional or longitudinal analysis, will be able to implement the syntax provided as part of the output of this research to enhance the quality of their work.

A number of fields will also benefit from the substantive findings of the project. For example, researchers in the field of marketing and survey methodology will be able to use the research to inform decisions about survey design in longitudinal and cross-cultural research (see WP 1 and 2 in the case for support). In psychology, the research will contribute to understanding of the relationship between stable personal traits and response styles (WP 1). Similarly, in political science the results will enhance understanding of attitudes and non-attitudes and the way they change in time (see WP 1 and 3).

The outputs of the project will be made available to the academic community using a series of methods. Three papers will be published in high-impact journals and made publicly available either using the green or the gold open access publishing standard. I will also present at 3 conferences over the course of the 18 months, facilitating the dissemination of findings to peers in different areas. I will use a blog and a Twitter account to raise awareness about measurement error and the findings of the project both to academic peers and a wider audience. I will also organize a workshop on measurement error in longitudinal data. Additionally I will present at the NCRM Research Methods Festival and will teach a short course on how to correct for measurement error as part of the NCRM short course programme.

The project will also contribute to the increasingly prominent and controversial debate regarding public attitudes to immigration and immigrants, which will be the substantive focus of the analyses through which the new methods will be applied and tested. The impact of the project on this topic will be twofold: directly, through the substantive research on this topic and indirectly, through the improved measurement quality and by enabling secondary data users to run their analyses on the corrected version of the scale.